Some Like It Hot

Movies that are still funny after 60 years are rare. “Some Like It Hot” has going for it the comic trio of Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and a terrific script by I.A.L. Diamond and director Billy Wilder.

It’s the story of two musicians in the 1920s who witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and know they have to get out of town fast. To escape getting killed by mob boss George Raft, they disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band, in which Monroe is the singer.

The film is full of classic sequences. A particularly notable one takes place between Lemmon and Monroe on the train at night. Another is between Monroe and Curtis, posing as an impotent rich man who happens to talk just like Cary Grant.

The film’s treatment of Monroe is a bit crass, but alas typical of the era. (If she’d lived long enough, she might have flourished in the mid- to late 1960s.)

But Jack Lemmon, especially, is hysterically funny throughout. The Blu-ray, from Criterion, is full of great extras, including an appearance by Wilder on Dick Cavett’s PBS show in 1982 and an interview in 1988 with Lemmon.

There’s also Leonard Maltin’s 2001 interview with Tony Curtis, but you should take everything Curtis says with a pound of salt: He loved to make up stories, particularly about Marilyn.

The list price is steep, but if you look around, you can find it for a lot less.

United Artists 1959 Tony Curtis (left) and Jack Lemmon hide out as women in “Some Like It Hot.”

SOME LIKE IT HOT1959NOT RATED THE CRITERION COLLECTION $39.95